


The Worst Kind of Affliction

by boingboing



Category: Uchu no Kishi Tekkaman Burēdo Tsū | Tekkaman Blade II
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 13:15:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5457764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boingboing/pseuds/boingboing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>When all I can think about is you, what am I supposed to do?</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Worst Kind of Affliction

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kalloway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalloway/gifts).



No one was more surprised to see Tekkaman Dead taking on the Radam single-handedly than David Kruegel. A month of silence after that mess at Prague, a month of nothing but training with little time for anything else, let alone time to brood in his own self-introspection, a month for David to realize a great many things about himself and his life, for Dead to show up again, filled him with an anxious optimism.

Optimism for things thought to be too late to fix. Now he was presented with another opportunity, a second chance, he supposed. Or at least he thought, until Dead went silent again. All attempts to reach out to him through official channels were met with that same enigmatic silence.

The cross was warm to the touch. Maybe it was because ever since Dead gave it to him (threw it at him? Things were a bit confused during that moment), David hadn’t let it out of his sight. He repaired the cross and wore it tucked beneath his uniform where it rested against skin.

After their operation near Jupiter, the Radam had gone silent again, and the only activity on the news feeds was the flap in central command about further investigation regarding the release another nuke on Prague. They were looking for a scapegoat. The Space Knights were thankfully not on the block for that.

The sun was setting on another quiet day and the off shore wind was coming back, blowing the clear ocean breeze was actually doing quite a bit to clear his head.

“I see you took my advice.” Natasha’s voice was startling close. He’d never heard her come out onto the balcony. 

“Getting bitched out three times in a row during training has a tendency to highlight the obvious.”

“That your head is up your ass?”

David laughed. “Yeah, something like that.”

Natasha joined him at the railing, mirroring his pose as she stared out at the calm waters of the bay. “You weren’t _that_ bad. The chief just wants to make sure we stay in top form against the Radam.”

“I hear a _but_ coming.”

“But,” she accommodated his suspicion, “you haven’t been the same since Prague. We’ve all noticed it.”

“Story of my life.” 

“Still thinking about Dead End?”

David scrubbed a hand through his hair. And wasn’t that the mother of understatements? How one man had managed to turn David upside down in such a short time. “Is it that obvious?”

“Wow. Your head really is up your ass if you have to ask that question. But it’s almost like you’re waiting for him to come to you, which is totally not your style. Usually, you’re the one who does the pursuing.” After a beat, Natasha’s hand rested, warm and firm, on his shoulder. She gave it a shake before pushing away to head back inside the building. “You have some leave time coming, you should try to find him if you’re that concerned.”

David nodded but didn’t follow immediately. There had been a part of him that had hoped that Dead End would come to find him but that was stupid wasn’t it? If two people waited for the other, everyone ended up waiting.

Jesus, that reasoning sounded just like Yumi. He wasn’t sure if that was reassuring, or frightening.

**

In the end, David did opt for a few days leave. He claimed that what had prevented him from striking out before was this stupid ass illusion that he didn’t know where to start looking. He knew. He knew exactly where he’d find Dead End, and realized as he parked the jeep and climbed out, that what he’d been doing was avoiding this. This awkward gap he needed to bridge.

“There’s one thing I don’t get.” David stopped just short of the hilltop, leaning against the tree. Against the moon-filled sky was the silhouette of a familiar figure perched on a grave stone. The jagged jump of anticipation in his gut confirmed it. 

“Only one thing? Is that a record?”

Dead End’s husky voice sent a shiver down his spine. It rolled and spun in the pit of his groin, filled with a deadly mixture of emotions that coursed through him in a confused mix. 

“Probably.” He dropped his pose and made the climb up the hill to stand in front of his…what was it that he and Dead End were? Friends? Enemies? Acquaintances? It didn’t ease the anxious uneasiness that made his head swim. When he came to a stop, awkwardness forced his hands into his pockets. He didn’t have a clue what to do with them. 

“You want to know why,” Dead End said. One arm draped over his bent knee. 

“Yeah.” 

“Do I have to have a reason?”

“I guess not.”

“But you’d like one.”

“I guess so.”

Dead End made a sharp sound in the back of his throat. “You totally suck at this, you know that?”

David laughed. “I know.”

“That’s kind of surprising, knowing how much you love the ladies, man. Figured you’d be a real charmer.”

“I _am_ a real charmer.”

“Just not tonight.”

“You’re not anyone like I’ve known, Dead. I don’t….” David trailed off. Funny how in his head all his smooth lines worked themselves out but once he was there, it was like someone had scrubbed his brain clean.

Dead End jumped from his perch, arms stretching overhead to spine-popping proportions. “Would a drink loosen you up?”

“It’d be a good start.”

**

It was early on a week night. The bar had only a few patrons scattered around. Dead End strode into the place like he belonged there, and David was watching in a mesmerized fascination at just how gracefully Dead moved. Instead of heading for the bar, they snaked through the tables to grab one against the far wall. “Get me vodka and tonic,” Dead said over his shoulder. The smoldering smile he favored David wiggled warmly in his stomach. 

David dutifully got Dead’s drink, picking up bourbon for himself before he settled at the table across from the very confusing man. 

“So,” Dead pulled his drink over, one long finger swirling in the glass before he took a sip. “Want to try this again?”

David hunched over his tumbler, thumbs playing along the sides of the glass. “Why are you helping us, Dead? I figured after everything…” he made impotent motions with his hands before giving up trying to find a way to sugar coat it. “Knowing how you feel about the Space Knights, about all that happened, about me-”

“And just how is it that I feel about you? What do you know that I don’t?”

“Look, I didn’t come to fight-”

“That’s good because you totally suck at that, too.”

“Ohho,” David leaned back and laughed. “Is that how this is going to be?”

Dead shrugged. “You don’t know anything about me, David.”

This was not how David wanted this to go. The distance he felt from Dead, just from sitting across the table from him, made him ache. It filled him with a frustration he could only now just give name to. “Well shit, Dead, I’m fucking trying here, okay? How about you stop acting all mercurial on me and just fucking give me a straight answer.”

“Now that’s the David I remember.” Dead’s challenging posture dropped. “Don’t want you going soft on me.”

“Jesus. Just tell me why you fight _with_ us now.”

“Instead of still fighting against you.”

“Yeah.”

“Because you don’t know.”

“No.”

Dead nodded slowly, lips pursed as he stared at his drink. He took a sip, his tongue slipping out to slide along his bottom lip. “Only if you tell _me_ why it’s important for _you_ to know the reason why. Blade understands.”

David was missing something vital in this conversation. He could tell. It had an edge, jagged and sharp, filled with anger, resentment and _something_. Every time Dead opened his mouth, that edge raked across David’s skin, opening him to leave him in bleeding confusion. “It’s important to me because _you’re_ important to me. Because I want to know more about you. Because I want to reach out and have you closer. Because all this,” and David spread his arms wide, palms sliding over the table top to grip at the edge, “is leaving me gasping, like it’s hard to breathe.”

“What about your precious Red Tekkaman?”

Yeah, that was the thing, wasn’t it? What about the chief? Christ, even now he couldn’t bring himself to refer to her with her first name. “I don’t really know. I mean, love, loyalty, it’s all mixed up inside my head. She saved me and I owe her. I care about her and I thought it was love. Then…”

“Then you met me,” Dead said with a smirk spreading his lips into a wide smile. “I have that effect on people.”

“You do. When it came down to a fight against you, it hurt me, Dead. Deep inside. Then, I thought you were gone and that deep inside feeling just overwhelmed me. Made it hard to think about her or anyone else. It was all…meaningless. I still care for her and she’ll always be special to me but shit,” David’s hands combed through his hair. “When all I can think about is you, what am I supposed to do?”

When David looked up at Dead, the smirk was dropping away, leaving astonishment in its place. “I have to say this is kind of a surprise. You know I’m a guy, right?”

David rolled his eyes. “No shit.”

“I have to ask, David, because guys tend to forget that until we’re getting undressed. Then they freak out. Not sure why, it’s not like I present being anything other than I am. I’m not that confusing.” Dead’s nails clacked on the table as he drummed his fingers. “Is that where you’re heading with this? The getting undressed part? Am I reading this all wrong?”

Now the cards were out on the table. David felt like he was finally not talking around it, feeling his way around it. The coalescing emotions settled in his stomach like warm honey, slowly spreading through his limbs until he no longer felt the anxious tingle that had plagued him from the beginning of the night. “You’re not reading it _completely_ wrong.”

“Mmm, sounded a little weak there. Like you’re not really sure.” Dead glanced over his shoulder to the sounds of the jukebox and sparsely populated dance floor. “Tell you what,” he said, banging his hands on the table before holding one out to him. “Come dance.”

“Dead, I don’t dance,” but the rest of his protest was lost, ignored more likely, as he was dragged out to stand in the center of the dance space. 

Dead drew him close, his hands guiding David’s arms around him, and damn he was warm to hold. Dead was solid in his embrace, almost fitting perfectly. The music playing was slow; a soulful song of longing, floating over the top of a familiar melody. “That’s the song you-”

“You remember. I’m flattered.” 

Dead’s arms wound around his shoulders and started the slow sway in time with the music. Even with the smoke and the alcohol, David could smell the fresh air that clung to Dead, like a fairy cloud. Ethereal and dream-like. That pretty much summed Dead End up.

A few times their hips brushed. At first, David thought it was the natural part of their dancing. Or at least him ineptly _trying_ to dance. The more they swayed on the floor the more it became apparent that Dead End was deliberately pressing and brushing against him. It was having the desired effect. David’s jeans were growing tight through his groin. A glance in Dead’s eyes verified. “You’re a shit.”

“I’m only getting started.”

Sex was something David engaged in regularly. He wasn’t new to it, to sex, to seduction, to the dance that took two bodies from vertical to horizontal. God knows that for the past month he’d thought about having Dead stretched out beneath him on more than one occasion. There was a small worry that plagued him, the minor detail that he’d never been with another man before and how was all this supposed to work. Would it be different? If so, how? What would he need to know?

It was funny to him in hindsight, all that worry and fretting. The primal feelings were the same. The visceral gut clenching of arousal that fought with higher thought functions weren’t any different with Dead than they were with any of the women he’d been with. 

And in looking into Dead’s eyes, he could see the same. The widening of pupils until they were almost all black, the slight flush to his cheeks and the rapid beating of his heart as it throbbed at that pulse point in Dead’s neck. 

It was such a simple thing to close the distance between their mouths, and how easily Dead’s lips parted for his tongue. Everything closed down around that meeting of their bodies as the heat filled the small spaces between them. He had been hard before. He was throbbing now. When their kiss broke, David breathed like he had been running. 

“Well, this is certainly an interesting development,” Dead purred. He dragged his bottom lip between teeth. “Too bad you can’t take me to your place behind all the concrete and security measures. I’d love to see how your bed holds up to _real_ activity.”

“Guess this means you have to take me to yours.” 

“If that’s how you want this to go.”

“I thought it was kind of obvious,” David said with a hard grind of his hips.

Dead leaned heavily into David, face upturned to favor him with a dreamy smile. “I’m not interested in being a placeholder for _her_.”

Despite the smile, David could see the aloof distrust; hear the reservation in Dead’s voice. 

It was a good point, one that David had already gone over in his head a thousand times since Prague. He knew the answer. Reaching inside his shirt, he teased out the battered and broken cross he'd been wearing since Dead first threw it at him. “You won’t be.” 

Dead End stared at the cross for a long, silent moment. Long fingernails tapped lightly at it. “That’s the _why_ , David.”

The final wall came down between them. A wall David only now saw was there. A wall affirmed with that one, simple _why_. God, he was such an idiot sometimes. Natasha was right. His head _was_ up his ass.

With Dead drawing him by the hand and leading him from the dance floor, David hoped he wasn’t suffering from that particular affliction now.


End file.
